Elliot Nacht, 12, successfully used a mechanical crane to stack one geometrically shaped brick onto another one. Moments later, it all came tumbling down.

That’s what happens in the world of using a claw machine, just like the ones at the arcade.

“It’s very challenging," said Nacht, who was visiting the Cristin Tierney Gallery on the Bowery in Manhattan. "It’s not as easy as it looks.” 

The claw machine is the centerpiece of an interactive installation at the gallery called "Balancing Act." It’s the work of Toronto-based artists Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins, who have been collaborating for nearly 25 years.

“People tend to really get into it, and you’ll hear people giving encouragement to someone, giving them instructions, trying to help them stack something. Everybody collectively cheers or groans when something gets properly stacked or when it falls over,” said Moeller, who is the director of the gallery.

Players use a control panel with joysticks to move around, pick up and rearrange the multi-colored and shaped foam blocks covered in felt. There are also 10 fun and colorful paintings that accompany the machine, which runs on a car battery that is recharged nightly.

Moeller says the artists are inspired by the industrial age, when machinery like cranes and bulldozers were used to reshape the land.

“People would see these images of these large pieces of machinery building public works like the Panama Canal and they made a game out of it, so this work is sort of a nod to that, an homage to that, but it’s also thinking about the history of modernism in art,” Moeller said.

Visitors can give the claw machine a try through July 21, with no prizes, except for the opportunity to create some art and have a few laughs.

For hours and other information, head to the gallery's website.